The standards for a good crypto project are completely skewed since there is nothing to compare them to besides each other. When you have complete vaporwares and shitcoins like Verge with total market cap of $500Million it's easy to tell yourself that the projects you picked are "good" in comparison.
Likewise business/economics inexperienced people reading white papers for the first time or watching an advertisement made by their company and feeling impressed is just as insignificant of a judgment.